It's not exile, homes and families behind
us, where we meet. It happens anywhere,
now: a stateless
state of no name, quietly seceding
from the crumbling empires round us,
without stamps or Eurovision entries.
No-one does it with a rough guide in a week.
You inhabit it
or nothing. Like this: in a pavement cafe
you blink and you seem to surprise them,
the crowd, all its separate faces at once,
coming out of solution like crystals,
like a rush of starlings
or the breeze that lifts the canvas awning
now and dents your cappuccino froth
with a crisp little sound. And that's it:
between breaths, just between you and me
as if; yes,
QED. You are received. This is
the freedom of the city, and the key
to the kingdom, and its borders ripple
outwards like a frill of breaking wave
onto flat sand,
a wavering line already fading leaving
spume-flecks high and dry,
...
Maiden-poet, come with me
To the heaped up cairn of Maeve,
And there we'll dance a fairy dance
Upon a fairy's grave.
In and out among the trees,
Filling all the night with sound,
The morning, strung upon her star,
Shall chase us round and round.
...
It's not too late to let it go,
All those times I had to sow,
But this time, I won't hide away,
I want to speak, come what may.
You may call me the monster, it's true,
But we all have secrets, me and you.
I realized it, now I know,
Time is short, and it steals the show.
Can you see it the way I do?
Or is it just the end coming through?
...
Pushing off on her back out
Into the fishpond's cold
Archaic glitter, my naked wife
Could not have guessed how
High she rode into the noon
Sky, a brightened polestar
Gliding out between nothing
And nothing, between a sun-
Lit vacancy and its ancient,
Reflected, weightless
Hour unrippling back
From the sedges. The just-
Cut grasses fumed around her
Like gasoline, a few
Spent bees dozed above
The compost, and in my arms
The steady thrum of the mower
Carried on, though I'd
Shut it off to sit down
And watch: but so fond of her,
The water parted to take
Her back from that aimless
Sky, where light-
Headed and slippery as a star
...
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat,
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,
I love you,
I have nothing else to give you,
...
And I'm again sitting here
with all these people around
and I don't know
how I finally ended up in this pink gown
How long it will take
to finally know who I am
how long it will last
'cause I don't want to be here now
I'm just thinking
thinking about me
...
I
All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
City of spring, the governed flower,
Turns in the earth that turns the ashen
Towns around on a wheel of fire.
How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all and all, the corpse's lover,
Skinny as sin, the foaming marrow,
All of the flesh, the dry worlds lever.
II
Fear not the waking world, my mortal,
Fear not the flat, synthetic blood,
Nor the heart in the ribbing metal.
Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,
The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade,
Nor the flint in the lover's mauling.
Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven,
Know now the flesh's lock and vice,
And the cage for the scythe-eyed raver.
Know, O my bone, the jointed lever,
...
Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
...
I was never perfect,
Always had my hair in a ponytail,
Always shouting at the people who love me,
I could never be perfect.
I'd always look at girls in movies,
Wondering how their hair is so blonde,
How their bodies are so perfect,
I would never be perfect.
...
If you die before me
I would jump down into your grave
and hug you so innocently
that angels will become jealous.
...
Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...
The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
...
The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...
(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)
Noong taong otsenta dekada
...
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
...
you put this pen
in my hand and you
take the pen from you put this pen
...
On this dry prepared path walk heavy feet.
This is not "dinner music." This is a power structure.
...
"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
...
If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
...
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
...